We love Moby-Dick at Sea-Fever so it was fun to stumble upon Google’s Doodle celebrating the 161st birthday of it’s publication in England. We can celebrate again next month because it was published in the US on November 14, 1851!

As a present to Sea-Fever readers, here’s the 1st chapter of the Moby-Dick Big Read. Here’s what’s that’s all about:

…an online version of Melville’s magisterial tome: each of its 135 chapters read out aloud, by a mixture of the celebrated and the unknown, to be broadcast online in a sequence of 135 downloads, publicly and freely accessible.

They started posting a chapter a day on Sept. 16, 2012. Tilda Swinton spins an awesome yarn in Chapter 1 – Loomings. There are many other interesting readers and the artwork on the website is definitely worth a visit.

Of course, if you need any help deciphering Melville’s lexicon, there’s no better place to go than Meg Guroff’s awesome PowerMobyDick website.